That is super amazing. Sliding through the image it seems that dark spots are the places that are out of place. All these stars, but why should it be dark over here. Is there something in the way? Was there a big explosion? Is that the star suburbs? Rural galactic property?

IronTom:That is super amazing. Sliding through the image it seems that dark spots are the places that are out of place. All these stars, but why should it be dark over here. Is there something in the way? Was there a big explosion? Is that the star suburbs? Rural galactic property?

The dark areas are dust that is blocking out the light of the starts in the background. If you notice, there are larger (meaning closer) stars in front of the dust clouds as well.

Forget I asked, because after you click on this link, your day will be gone. Poof! Vanished, since you will find yourself buried in a magnificent, massive of the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

And when I say massive, I mean it's friggin' HUGE: 24,000 x 14,000 pixels! That's a total of a staggering 330 million pixels. It's a combination of three images (one each in red, green, and blue to produce a true-color final product), so it's actually-and I can't believe I'm typing this-the combination of a billion pixels of information.

Did I mention it's zoomable and scannable? No? Well, there goes your day.

IronTom:That is super amazing. Sliding through the image it seems that dark spots are the places that are out of place. All these stars, but why should it be dark over here. Is there something in the way? Was there a big explosion? Is that the star suburbs? Rural galactic property?

My interest in astronomy has lately been focused on the outliers -- rogue planets and stars located in the Milky Way's halo. This is awesome in its own way, though.

I wonder what the planets are like in there. The stars are close enough together that with a few exceptions hovering very close to the stars themselves, the galaxy's core is probably one giant pinball machine.

Slow of Wit:Wow. I wonder what the night sky would look like on a planet in such a dense stellar neighborhood.

I bet it would look awesome. Probably peppered with white dots. I would imagine even though those stars appear close, they are still probably a few light years apart (I have no basis for this, just a hunch)

machoprogrammer:Slow of Wit: Wow. I wonder what the night sky would look like on a planet in such a dense stellar neighborhood.

I bet it would look awesome. Probably peppered with white dots. I would imagine even though those stars appear close, they are still probably a few light years apart (I have no basis for this, just a hunch)

If you can see a smidge of space between the stars, they are definitely light-years apart, at the scale of the picture.

Slow of Wit:Wow. I wonder what the night sky would look like on a planet in such a dense stellar neighborhood.

This is gonna sound like a cop-out but it's rather relative since "look" depends in large part on how your eyes adjust. If it was blinding, your pupils would just constrict, and see less in the process.

Setting aside issues with the planet staying bound to its mother star, I'd say most of the night sky wouldn't look dramatically different, just brighter. The light of the Milky Way is bright enough to cast a shadow in remote areas, but it's completely washed out in the suburbs. In "dark" skies near the core your eyes would adjust; the difference being it would illuminate your surroundings much better -- you probably wouldn't need a flashlight to get around. Meanwhile, even urban areas could probably see thousand of stars, many visible even in daylight. The core might shine as bright as the full moon.

I feel pretty insignificant relative to other people on this continent on earth. Looking at that picture there are no words to describe how meaningless my worries are. I'm a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust ad infinitum.

MayoSlather:I feel pretty insignificant relative to other people on this continent on earth. Looking at that picture there are no words to describe how meaningless my worries are. I'm a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust ad infinitum.

For what it's worth, the imagination is not bound by anything. Whether or not you're religious, if you weren't fortunate enough to be wealthy and sentient to appreciate such a thought, the picture may as well not exist at all. I could say the same for any advanced civilization that may be out there, but without sentience, why bother to have a universe?

Where this train of thought gets depressing is just how stunted most people's imaginations are -- humans, anyway. Creation myths are laughably retarded, and most modern-day imaginations aren't much more ambitious. Most people are only vaguely aware the Moon and Sun are far away, and really don't contemplate existence much more than a hundred miles above the Earth's surface. Even everyone's favorite sci-fi/adventure franchises don't really extend the scope of their canon beyond a couple hundred boringly similar systems. Here's where some dertards gush about how unrestrained children's imaginations are, but even children likely understate the vast distances involved, and either way there's a difference between shouting out "a kazillion!" and actually have a sense of scale.

dragonchild:MayoSlather: I feel pretty insignificant relative to other people on this continent on earth. Looking at that picture there are no words to describe how meaningless my worries are. I'm a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust ad infinitum.

For what it's worth, the imagination is not bound by anything. Whether or not you're religious, if you weren't fortunate enough to be wealthy and sentient to appreciate such a thought, the picture may as well not exist at all. I could say the same for any advanced civilization that may be out there, but without sentience, why bother to have a universe?

Where this train of thought gets depressing is just how stunted most people's imaginations are -- humans, anyway. Creation myths are laughably retarded, and most modern-day imaginations aren't much more ambitious. Most people are only vaguely aware the Moon and Sun are far away, and really don't contemplate existence much more than a hundred miles above the Earth's surface. Even everyone's favorite sci-fi/adventure franchises don't really extend the scope of their canon beyond a couple hundred boringly similar systems. Here's where some dertards gush about how unrestrained children's imaginations are, but even children likely understate the vast distances involved, and either way there's a difference between shouting out "a kazillion!" and actually have a sense of scale.

For that matter I have some idea of scale but really trying to comprehend that image of only a section of our own galaxy is beyond my ability. I'm at a loss to begin to fathom how vast the universe is, and that is awesome.

MayoSlather:For that matter I have some idea of scale but really trying to comprehend that image of only a section of our own galaxy is beyond my ability. I'm at a loss to begin to fathom how vast the universe is, and that is awesome.

You're in good company. The Bad Astronomer's been doing this more passionately and much longer than any of us here, and it makes his brain hurt.

dragonchild:MayoSlather: For that matter I have some idea of scale but really trying to comprehend that image of only a section of our own galaxy is beyond my ability. I'm at a loss to begin to fathom how vast the universe is, and that is awesome.

You're in good company. The Bad Astronomer's been doing this more passionately and much longer than any of us here, and it makes his brain hurt.